branchial

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

adj. Of, relating to, or resembling the gills of a fish, their homologous embryonic structures, or the derivatives of their homologous parts in higher animals: branchial muscles.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

adj. Of, pertaining to or resembling gills

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

adj. Of or pertaining to branchiæ or gills.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

Of or pertaining to the branchiæ or gills; or, in animals which have no gills properly so called, of or pertaining to the parts considered homologous with gills, as, in a bird or mammal, parts of the third postoral visceral arch, or of any visceral arch behind the hyoidean.

Performed by means of branchiæ: as, branchial respiration; a branchial function.

In Crustacea, a cavity or space inclosed by the branchiostegite or gill-cover (formed by a free pleural part of the carapace), and bounded internally by the epimera of the branchiferous somites.

The _lateral fistula of the neck_ -- formerly described as a branchial fistula -- according to Weglowski, usually takes origin from the remains of the hypoblastic diverticulum, which arises from the pharyngeal part of the third visceral cleft and extends downwards to form the thymus gland.

This framework consists of a number of arches (placed in series one behind another) extending on each side of the throat upwards towards the back-bone, and supporting on their outer sides the gills or branchia, on which account they are called the branchial arches.

The pharyngula stage/phylotypic stage is the time when Hox gene expression is ordered and active, when organogenesis is ongoing, and when the hallmarks of chordate embryology, like segmental myotomes, a tailbud, and branchial arches are forming.

The eggs pass, I know not how, into the mouth, the bottom of which is lined by them, between the inner appendages of the branchial arches, and especially into a pouch, formed by the upper pharyngeals which they completely fill.